The Night of the Iguana (1964)

(Virgina, southern Mexico; roughly contemporary)
IMDb

The Rev. Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) was not defrocked. It is important that we point this out, or at least he would think so. The incident at his Virginia parish, those many years ago, with the young Sunday school teacher, and the kneeling, and the laying, and the fathers razor, and the running of the congregation out of Sunday services. Well that simply resulted in his being “locked out of the Church”, and a brief period in an institution to recover from his “nervous breakdown”. No he was not defrocked, he kept his frock, even if it wouldn’t button no more. He kept and he brought it with him through many, many post-clerical jobs. He brought on his travels for Blake’s Tours, a low budget operation whose boss was not esteemed by him.

In fact the reverend brought it with him when traveling through Mexico, and Episcopal priest leading lady teachers from a Texas Baptist college through the jungles of Mexico. They were middle aged an bland, not very good singers. Though there was Charlotte Goodall (Sue Lyon), she was seventeen and traveling with her aunt (Grayson Hall), after he own incident with a boy back in El Paso. Charlotte liked boys, and she liked Dr. Lawrence, something that proved quite inconvenient given his background, and the judgmental eye of Judith Fellowes, who is a very moral women after all. So moral in fact that she’d have poor Shannon fired, just like that, statutory rape when the honest to god Lolita was throwing herself at him. This is cause for more time with the bottle. And a visit to Frank, yes Frankie, he’ll know what to do, how to bring a man his solace.

An unscheduled stop was made at that sea side resort, were Frankie fished and Maxine (Ave Gardner) worked. Well that was until four weeks ago when Frankie died, leaving Maxine a widow. Of course she was twenty-seven years younger then him, but she loved him, if not in a sexual way. So here he was, trying to find his way out, with a bunch a hens, a vixen, a lustful widow, a strong lady painter, a 97 year-old Yankee poet, a couple of Mexican cabana boys, and a Chinese cook. All at the end of there ropes, all needing there own Night of The Iguana.

This is a fantastic piece of work, Huston at his best. The cast is all far above pare, and you could not ask for more then this strange, meditative, thought provoking picture. Tennessee Williams got some things about the human condition, mainly its biasness, but also its aspirations. A southern born homosexual of his era, you bet he had some issues with God, and he paints them on a dark canvas, one that’s not to optimistic about man, but empathetic in an honest way. You could teach a class on this film, there’s a plethora of subtexts, themes and messages there in. The Iguana is a suffering humanity, ugly but it has feelings, and when a drunken god sets it free in the middle of the night it shows its gratitude by fleeing. I loved this picture.